My Amazon Review of Judith Bishop's "Changing Channels:From Just the Facts to Outrageous Opinions"

Newsmakers and Noisemakers

 

Long time television news producer Judith Bishop has offered up a serious critique of the news business in the age of Trump. Her book is more like a long magazine article, but it is worthy just the same. Although the issues she cites long predates Trump, it has been especially hard on serious journalists who have to report the consistent stream of lies put out by the Trump Administration. We are truly living in Orwellian times.

 

Bishop’s focus is largely on television news where she recounts the well-known story of the three network oligopoly being decimated by the rise of cable and later the internet. We can’t go home anymore back to the days of Walter Cronkite. Her well researched book highlights her interviews with such luminaries as veterans Ted Koppel of ABC and Frank Sesno of CNN to newbie Katy Tur of NBC.

 

She discusses the rise of Fox News as a rightwing alternative to the more liberal networks along with CNN and MSNBC. She understates the genius of Roger Ailes in finding a market for his views. She also is very acute at highlighting the cost pressures facing media as viewers found other alternatives. Those pressures engendered the rise of opinion journalism as it is far less expensive to have four talking heads around a table in a studio than having real correspondents in the field in say Berlin, Beijing or Bagdad. As a result outrageous opinion dominates the delivery of facts. And outrage generates ratings. That is why CNN and MSNBC covered Trump like a glove in 2016.

 

I largely agree with Bishop’s thesis but I think she leaves out an important issue and that is what is not covered is sometimes far more important than what is covered. To me part of the reason why the mainstream media lost its way is that it does not cover a host of issues. For example a center-right viewer like myself would like to see coverage on the Marxism and antisemitism of Black Lives Matter, the risks of COVID spread arising from the demonstrations around the horrific death of George Floyd, and the huge hit to small businesses in Portland, Seattle and Minneapolis arising from the demonstrations. If the mainstream media is to be rehabilitated it has to look itself in mirror.

 

Lastly I would highlight the rise of the “woke” culture in the news business. If Trump’s lies are Orwellian so too are the “woke” censors policing journalists and the language they use. It’s a real mess but I remain hopeful that television journalism finds a way out of this morass. Judith Bishop points us in the facts-based direction.

For the full Amazon URL see: https://www.amazon.com/review/R3VQE1C6KL8C02/ref=pe_1098610_137716200_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv